The Detective
Detective Sam Harlan had been doing this job long enough to know that guilt rarely looked the way people imagined. It wasn’t always sweat and stammering and darting eyes. Sometimes guilt looked like calm, like the still surface of water hiding a current. Sometimes it looked like people who’d already decided that fighting was pointless.
That’s what he’d seen in Kyle Whitaker.
The guy hadn’t flinched once during questioning. No outbursts. No visible fear. Just that steady, flat marine stare that made Harlan’s pen hesitate over the page. He’d seen soldiers before. Most of them carried silence like a weapon. Harlan had figured the guy was either there to buy drugs or wet his wick with a girl who was known to be loose.
But his unemotional admittance of fucking a man for money unnerved Harlan. Whitaker didn’t seem to be the type.
But something about this one wouldn’t let go.
After Whitaker left the station, Harlan stayed behind at the table, elbows resting on the cold metal, staring at the case file until the corners of the photos curled. The hum of the overhead light filled the room. Somewhere down the hall, a phone rang twice and went quiet.
Room 212.
Female victim, late twenties.
Signs of struggle.
No forced entry.
No usable prints, except one partial on the doorframe, smudged beyond recovery. The blood splatter made Harlan’s gut tighten. The public was unaware of it. Strangulation was released as the probable cause of death. Those on the scene knew better.
He flipped to the witness statement again. “White male, thirties, mustache, tan pickup.” A single line, scribbled at the bottom in the witness’s uneven handwriting.
Too clean. Too neat.
On paper, it looked airtight. But the puzzle pieces fit too well, as if someone had pressed them together by force.
He sipped from his paper cup and grimaced at the cold coffee. The taste lingered bitter on his tongue. In the margin of his report, he’d written two words and circled them twice:
WHY HIM?
WHY THERE?
He’d checked the background again: spotless. No priors, no domestic calls, no bar fights. Military service, honorable discharge. A work history that read like a man barely staying above water, temporary jobs, layoffs, nothing violent.
Yet here he was. Was it a set up? Or was it just bad luck.
By late afternoon, the lieutenant wanted him brought back in. “We’ve got to close the loop,” he’d said, tapping his pen against the file. “Run him again before we lose daylight.”
So they did.
The tire shop sat at the edge of town, squat and sunburned, the smell of rubber and oil heavy in the air. Harlan watched from the passenger seat of the unmarked sedan as Kyle locked the glass door, wiping his hands on a rag. The man moved with that quiet precision soldiers had, every action measured, exact, like he was still waiting for orders.
“He looks tired,” Ruiz said from the driver’s seat. He was young, still new enough to believe in the neat symmetry of guilt and punishment. “Not nervous. Just… used up.”
“Shut up and keep the engine running,” Harlan said.
They stepped out together, the heat hitting them in a wave. Kyle turned at the sound of their approach, eyes unreadable.
Back in the interview room, the air felt heavier. The fluorescent light flickered every few seconds, making the shadows stutter.
Harlan laid the photos on the table, one by one, like a deck of cards.
“This is the victim,” he said quietly. “You ever seen her before?”
Kyle glanced down, then back up. “No, sir.”
“You sure? Her room was two doors down from yours. The witness reports hearing a man’s voice.”
Kyle’s jaw tightened, barely perceptible. “Wasn’t me.”
“Then who was it?”
“I don’t know.”
Harlan let the silence stretch. He’d learned long ago that quiet did more than shouting ever could. The hum of the light seemed to grow louder, filling the space between them.
“You’re not under arrest right now,” Harlan said finally. “But I need you to understand the seriousness of this situation.”
He reached into the file, pulled out a folded document, and pushed it across the table. “You know that we had a warrant to check your truck.”
“I was there when you took it.”
“The warrant to search your residence had a typo, so it was delayed. It’s being searched now.”
Kyle wanted to tell him that there was nothing there, but would that make him look as if there had been something, and now it was gone?
Kyle saw Harlan swallow hard. He lowered his voice slightly. “I’m not allowed to advise you, but you should consider getting legal counsel.”
Kyle looked at the paper, eyes scanning the lines without expression. Then he raised his gaze. “I want a lawyer.”
The words came steady, practiced, the same voice he might’ve used to answer a command.
Harlan nodded once, slow. “Alright.”
A knock at the door interrupted what Harlan was about to say. A uniformed officer came in and handed him a sheet of paper. Harlan looked up at Kyle. “This is a warrant for your arrest. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided for you.”
The uniformed officer reached for his handcuffs.
Harlan stopped him. “You won’t need those. Mr. Whitaker won’t give you any trouble. Let’s get him processed.”
Outside the room, Harlan leaned against the wall, rubbing the back of his neck. The hallway smelled faintly of burned coffee and floor wax.
Ruiz joined him, file in hand. “Guy’s cold as ice,” he said. “You still think he didn’t do it, don’t you?”
Harlan didn’t answer right away. He glanced down the hallway at Kyle who was now sitting alone next to a table, hands clasped in front of him, staring at nothing. Still. Composed.
“I think,” Harlan said slowly, “he’s not telling us everything. But that doesn’t mean he’s a killer.”
Ruiz frowned. “Then what’s he hiding?”
Harlan exhaled, the sound soft, tired. “Something he’s been hiding for a long damn time.”
Ruiz raised an eyebrow. “You think he’s a serial?” His voice carried a hint of excitement at the prospect.
Harlan scoffed and studied Kyle once more. He didn’t get the sense of chaos from Whitaker. No twitch of compulsion, no rage just under the surface. But the quiet men sometimes frightened him most.
The detective knew in his gut that Kyle wasn’t a serial killer, but it might be a way to keep Ruiz busy and out of his hair. “Maybe we should look at unsolved cases,” he said finally. “From before his enlistment to now. Check the places that we know he’s been. See if there’s a pattern.”
Ruiz gave a short laugh, half disbelief, half excitement. “Those hands of his,” he said. “Big, strong hands. How many necks do you think they might’ve snapped? And I bet they can plunge a knife pretty deep.”
Harlan shot him a look. “Don’t romanticize it, kid.”
Ruiz’s grin faltered.
Harlan turned back to Kyle; Kyle hadn’t moved.
The hum of the fluorescent light carried down the hall, steady, relentless.
And in that cold blue glare, Harlan couldn’t tell if he was looking at a guilty man or a man already halfway erased by the weight of suspicion.
There was one thing of which the detective was certain. The face of Kyle Whitaker would be in his mind tonight as he showered and brought himself to release. Harlan glanced down at Kyle’s crotch. Fuck, he thought, as he turned to adjust himself. There had to be a way to prove his innocence.
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